Wooden Toys
Chapter 19
Wooden Toys
“It’s time for us to review the figures, my lord.”
Bran sighed and set his fidget box aside as Maester Luwin pulled out a daunting stack of pages. He had been summoned to the turret for his regular lessons and now he had to also do the work his father had once been responsible for. Bran should have been riding south with his father and sisters to become a knight and Robb should have been here to do it instead. But Robb was going to Old Town with Hermione, so now it was Brann’s task to do instead.
Bran had been so dismayed by the collective departure of his father, sisters, older brothers, and even Hermione and Harry. If it hadn’t been for his mother’s uncalled for fury, Harry might have been welcomed to stay in Winterfell and act as an aid for the child noble. Theon was here, but it wasn’t the same. Harry was so much more pleasant than the Stark hostage, and while he was an older boy like Theon, Harry had never been too old or too busy to play with him and little Rickon. He had never been too grownup to go along with their bits of make-believe, and in fact some of his ideas were even more fantastic than what the little boys could imagine.
On days when Bran especially missed him, he would fiddle with the puzzlebox that Harry had gifted him. While he certainly wanted to see it open and reveal the mysterious surprise, he found that just being able to press the buttons, flip the levers, and turn the wheels was strangely satisfying, almost therapeutic in a way and he found himself carrying it almost everywhere he went.
As he wasn’t allowed to climb the walls anymore, since now his mother wasn’t the only one who scolded him about it due to the fact that he was the eldest Stark at Winterfell, and thus the head of the household, it was imperative that he reduce the risk to his life as much as possible. And if that wasn’t enough to keep him off the walls, the increase to his workload certainly was. He had thought running a keep would be boring and tedious. To his amazement though, there was much more involved in maintaining a castle than he had initially assumed. It still wasn’t enough to dismiss the irritation he felt at being called away from his normal playtime, though.
Even if he had found moments to climb, most days he was far too tired to do so, vastly in contribution to the dreams.
Ever since his family had left, Bran had been suffering from an onslaught of strange and cryptic nightmares. Most he couldn’t remember come morning, but there were various reoccurring images that chased him through the night, leaving him snapping his eyes opened with terror and kept him awake till morning, too afraid to fall back into sleep and into the awaiting claws of whatever was after him. For moments like that, he would tend to the fire in his hearth and stare into the flames, watching them dance and finding comfort in the light until the dark horizon began to pale.
Bran looked back at the fidget box with those thoughts, wanting to distract himself with its comforting levers, before Maester Luwin brought him back to the present. He tried not to slouch as the old man pulled forward the top paper on the stack and cleared his throat to begin reading. But just before he could speak, the door opened and Bran’s lady mother stepped inside.
To that, Bran’s newly named direwolf, Summer, who had been resting on the stone beside his boy, stiffened, even growled a little.
“I will handle the appointments,” Catelyn announced. “My son is too young for this work.”
At the sight of her, Bran bristled just as Summer had and sat up straighter, putting a hand on the stack as if to keep them from her.
“No need, Mother. Rickon needs you. I am Lord Stark. It’s my duty to look the castle business over.”
“Nonsense. You are only a boy of ten. These are too difficult for you to understand yet.”
As much as he wanted to remain calm, a boiling anger was rising gradually for those words in part from the lack of sleep and in part because he did not want to look at her. “That is why Maester Luwin is here. He will give me his council as earnestly as he did for Father.”
She reached over in an effort to stroke his hair. “Does my own council mean nothing to you, my son?”
“Yes!” Bran shouted at her, all but leaping away from her touch. He was angry—so angry at her. She had driven Harry and Jon away and had wished horrible things to happen to Hermione on her journey to Old Town, or so he had heard. If it weren’t for her, then at least one of his older brothers may have been able to stay to help him with all this, but no. She had driven them away through spite and cowardice. For that alone, he wanted nothing to do with her.
“I am Lord of Winterfell!” He scolded her. Before that day, Bran would never have imagined speaking to his mother like this, but his lord father had stressed that it was Bran who was in charge, not Lady Catelyn and he was to act in that role, even if it meant he had to go against her wishes. “You are Rickon’s mother only! Your duties will not extend past those it takes to care for him.”
Catelyn looked both shocked and hurt by his declaration. “Bran, how can you speak such things? I am your mother, too.”
“Yes. But that is all you are. And when I am able to, I will stomach your presence, but that won’t be for a long while. Till then, GUARDS!” In reaction to their lord’s call, two men filed into the room, anticipating their orders. “Take my mother to her chambers and see that she maintains her time by only seeing to the care of my little brother.”
Without a word, they issued Lady Catelyn to follow them out of the torrent. But before they left, Bran had one final order for them. “And summon Theon. I will need his help.”
To that, they nodded and led the shocked woman back to her rooms.
His lord father had said he would be responsible for the upkeep of Winterfell and to seek the council of his mother when he needed it. Bran was resolute not to need it for as long as he could manage. Until then, he pulled the stack of papers towards him with a newfound determination.
“Now, I understand we need a new steward,” he proceeded, “and there are several other positions that are to be filled with Father’s departure?”
Luwin nodded, attempting to shake off the surprise of that awkward encounter between the little lord and his mother. He pulled out the list of candidates they were considering and began listing them off with their qualifications. Bran listened in earnest, and when Theon arrived, they all discussed the matters of the castle for hours and hours, right until the sun had set over the horizon and their stomachs were rumbling, issuing that it was well past time for supper.
It was abhorrent. How could Bran do this to Catelyn? His own mother?
With one order from the young boy, Catelyn was now confined to her and Rickon's rooms, with nothing to do but tend to her youngest, and Winterfell’s occupants were perfectly content to do as the boy commanded with no regard towards her in the least. How could they? How could he, her sweet boy?
For whatever reason he was mad at her, it couldn’t possibly have been enough to do this to Catelyn. She was his mother! And worst of all, he had called for the Greyjoy hostage to council him, over her. It added salt to the wound in the worst way. She fumed in a chair by the fire as she watched the only other occupants in the room.
Toys scattered the corner where her youngest played in. She watched Rickon wrestle away a ball from his ebony direwolf, Shaggy Dog, and mulled over her cruel predicament. Then her thoughts turned to the message that had come for her. The one that aided in the argument that finally convinced her husband to accept the role as Hand to Robert. Now he was gone to the capitol with her daughters and that ward. Her intentions succeeded, though not quite how she wanted it to turn. She would have preferred the original plan for both of those strangers. Potter and Granger should have gone in the same way. It was infuriating enough that Robb had fallen victim to that shameless seductress, now Potter was with her daughters. Catelyn didn't like this change. She didn't like it one bit, but she tried to comfort herself in the mind that Sansa was madly in love with her betrothed prince and Arya had no fancy for boys at this time. That's where her wild spirit came in handy, though Catelyn couldn't say she trusted the boy either way. Ned would keep him in line, though. She had to be confident in that at least.
It had been no simple matter to entertain the king and royal family while her husband had been away trying to get Robb to come home and looking back on it, she cringed inwardly.
She had entered the castle’s nicest quarters, where their royal company was staying. She passed the two kingsguard who flanked the doors leading inside and found King Robert, Queen Cersei, Lord Tyrion, Ser Jaime, and the princes and princess gathered for breakfast, awaiting their hosts to see what the plans would be that day.
Catelyn took a deep breath, stealing herself for this unpleasantness and approached them. “I apologize, your grace, but the hunt has been cancelled today.”
The king balked at that unwelcomed news. Undoubtably, he had been looking forward to exploring the North’s rich woodlands. “Cancelled? Whatever for? Where’s Ned, Cat?”
“It seems that in the middle of the night one of our wards has left to go to Oldtown to learn at the Citadel,” Lady Stark explained slowly.
The queen’s brother, Lord Tyrion, a stunted dwarf most people referred to as “the imp” had been listening adamantly before, but now with this added drama, his attention was fully on Catelyn. The royal children were also listening, though none of them added anything to this development while they ate. “Just one of them? Then let me guess. It was the willowy brunette I spoke to in the library yesterday. She had a very odd name… one I’ve never heard of before. What was it? Hermione?”
Catelyn closed her eyes, clearly martialing every bit of poise and grace not to groan at his correct deduction. “That would be correct, my lord.”
“That is most unfortunate,” the queen stated, looking displeased. “Some would take offense by a gesture done so rashly while royalty was visiting. It had nothing to do with our arrival, did it?”
Catelyn had feared this assumption from the moment she got the news. “No, your grace. Of course not. The girl is foreign, rash, and eccentric. It can be hard to predict what she’ll do sometimes.”
“So, a young girl has left. Why’s the whole bloomin’ castle have to go after her?” King Robert demanded.
“I assure you, your grace, if it was just her, no one would be making this much of a commotion about it.” Again Catelyn needed every bit of her strength to maintain her composure. She would have preferred this matter remain private, but there was no avoiding it, and it was better that they hear it from the lady of the castle rather from idle gossip from the servants. “Unfortunately, my son Robb… fancied her and has made the impulsive decision of going after her.”
Tyrion smiled, making Catelyn want to slap him. “My, how romantic. But why did she go alone? I heard that she and her friend were to ride there together so that he could learn to become a maester.”
“Apparently they had an argument in the middle of the night and had a bit of a falling out, so she journeyed alone.”
Seeing as the day’s entertainment was postponed, Robert stood to find a new distraction instead. “Well then, if you pardon me, if there is to be no hunt then I have some business I will attend to.”
Catelyn had an unpleasant feeling that she knew that “business” meant finding the closest northern whore and spending his day in bed with her. From the cold look on Queen Cersei’s face, she knew it, too. But the beautiful woman turned away, not caring about him. Out of the corner of her eye, Catelyn saw Ser Jaime make a strange gesture to his sister, but she waved him away, her interest diverted to their lady host. She turned fully to Catelyn, now engrossed in the drama of Winterfell. Perhaps she thought it was more intriguing than anything else they had planned to do that day. Jaime looked somehow dejected but followed his liege out of the room as his bodyguard. With her husband and brother gone now, Cersei returned to the latest gossip.
“They’ll never admit her,” she announced, referring to the Citadel. “She’s a woman. There’s never been a woman maester and she’ll have a great disappointment when she arrives. Such a long journey for nothing.”
Catelyn nodded, pleased to have someone agree with her for once. She took up an empty seat across from her peer and began the conversation in full now. “That’s what I believe as well, but that girl is too stubborn and determined to lead to any good. And out there on her own… she’ll be dead or worse in a fortnight, mark my words.”
Lord Tyrion shrugged though. “She’s got Robb. And she knows how to defend herself from what I know about her.”
Cersei only shook her head, looking down on her brother in more ways than one. “Little brother, you can’t possibly believe that he’ll be staying with her. As soon as Lord Stark and his company catch up to them, he’ll make the boy come back. After all, the heir of Winterfell cannot simply abandon his responsibilities for frivolous fancies.”
Tyrion only smiled deeper, sipping on beer in an agate goblet. “Our own heir of Castely Rock did so just fine. And what are spares for, if not for such occasions as these?" Now Catelyn really wanted to hit him and it looked like she wasn't the only one. At the mention of Jaime's own rejection of his birthright, Cersie looked like she was resisting the urge to snap at him. Tyrion went on though, entirely unbothered. "And if it’s all the same to you, I hope they do admit her. With enough stubbornness and determination anyone can relent, and I believe the young girl will achieve her goals if she is driven enough.”
Catelyn chose not to contradict him. She didn’t feel like getting into an argument right now and it wasn’t right to quarrel with a member of the royal family. Thankfully, the queen had a different subject on her mind.
“These wards your husband has taken in, interest me. Especially the boy for some reason. Harry, was it? Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.” Their names sounded odd on the queen’s tongue. Catelyn wasn’t sure why, but she sensed some sort of change in the air by how Cersei spoke of them. “Not sure I’ve ever heard of those houses before. And they’re both from Lorath?”
Catelyn nodded. “Yes, your grace.”
“Quite a long way to travel all alone for two young people.”
“Strange indeed. It’s a curious story,” Catelyn explained, launching into the tale of their mysterious arrival. “They just showed up one day from out of nowhere. Neither of them knew a word of the Common Tongue and yet they managed to come so far from their own country without it. And you know my husband has always had a kind heart, he just took the two of them in, just like that. No questions asked, or anything.”
“Highly risky,” Cersei pointed out. “They could’ve been spies or assassins for all either of you knew.”
Tyrion only scoffed at his sister’s absurd suspicion. “Assassins at that age? Hard to believe they could pose much of a threat.”
Catelyn only continued. “It was certainly strange. Our children were taken by them right away and before anything, Ned had Maester Luwin instruct them in our language immediately.”
“No doubt in the hopes that they’d be able to explain their journey,” Cersei deduced.
“No doubt, though we’ve still yet to hear even that!”
Tyrion only smiled more. “Funny. I’ve heard several interesting rumors about them since I got here. Seeing as you’ve housed them for… how long?”
“Nearly two years.”
Cersei was surprised. “That long? How unusual that their story remains a mystery.”
“Ned says that they don’t remember what brought them here, and he’s accepted that, but I’m certain they are hiding something.”
“If you wish it, I could order them for the truth. They would hardly deny the queen.”
Catelyn was tempted to accept her offer, but refused it in the end. “I beg you not, your grace. Ned trusts them and I accept that. If it is his wish to know more, I’m sure he will press for more when it’s convenient.”
Cersei’s eyes grew sharp, but she relented just the same. “As you wish. But what of the girl that your son has taken a liking to? She doesn’t seem like much from a glance. I can’t say I felt she was all that pretty when I fixed eyes on her. What is your opinion?”
Catelyn was happy enough for the opportunity to vent her frustrations about the girl. “She is far too headstrong for her own good. When they came here, I felt that having another lady around for Arya and Sansa to befriend would be good for them. There are so few around here already and I was willing to make concessions for my girls’ sakes. I intended to have her join in their usual studies with Septa Mordane, but since day one she has refused even those. At first, I thought that it was simply her own cultural habits getting the best of her. After all, who knows how the women behave in Lorath? I intended to make her return to her needlework when I heard she’d refused to go to a lesson since, but Ned argued that it was more important for her to learn our language as soon as possible.
“I told him, “If she is to be a lady here, she must behave like one!” No more of this reading during every available hour of the day and practicing sword fighting with the bastard during the rest of her time.”
Cersei’s brows raised, “Sword fighting? Surely you can’t be serious.”
“Of course, I am. They do it in secret, I’m certain, but I’ve seen them in the Godswood together; Him with a practice sword and her with one as well. He’s been teaching her! They’re both a horrid influence on each other! I’ve tried to keep the girls and the boys separate from the start, but she spends all her time with those boys. She even had the nerve to attend a beheading the first few months she was here.”
“My, my, quite the audacity.”
Catelyn went on in frustration. “She sets a poor example to my girls. Thankfully, Sansa is old enough to know what is expected of her, but Arya… She hangs off of Hermione’s every word and now because of this upset, she has it in her head that when she’s older she’ll be just like the girl and do what she wants with her life.
“I even told Ned when he chose to ward them that we needed to get her wedded. He talked to her, but she would have none of it. A girl that age shouldn’t be making these sort of decisions on her own.”
“Indeed not,” Cersei agreed. “The girl sounds like quite a lot of trouble for you. Has the boy been this obstinate?”
“Thankfully, the boy is better behaved than his counterpart. I’ll admit he was a bit slower than the girl in speaking our tongue but at least he hasn’t gone off and tried to act above his station. Not like that girl, at least. He knows what is expected of him and I’m glad of it.”
Tyrion looked less impressed with Catelyn’s ranting. “Perhaps the girl feels that she should not be limited to the boundaries that others would try to impose upon her. If she goes and is accepted into the Citadel, I’ve no doubt it will be one for the history books. I wonder how many other women will be inspired by her pluck.”
“Don’t be stupid, little brother. She will not be admitted. That girl has about as much chance of becoming a maester as she has of turning into a direwolf.”
Catelyn heard a voice behind her mutter something that sounded a lot like, “The odds are very much in her favor then,” but she wasn’t completely sure that had been the words that had been used. With them, Catelyn jumped to turn and see the maester standing in the doorway. “Oh Maester Luwin, what was that?”
“Nothing of interest, my lady. Merely talking to myself.” He carried a wooden box that Catelyn recognized as Rickon's toy chest. She then noticed him beside the maester and behind him came Sansa and Arya, carrying a few boxes that Catelyn recognized as the wooden games that Potter had made himself.
"We thought since the hunt was cancelled, perhaps the royal family would like to play some games."
There was nothing else to do, so it was an easy enough option.
Sansa and Arya set up their own boards. Arya would play chess with Tyrion while Sansa asked Prince Joffrey if he would like to play go, and Rickon invited Prince Tommen and Princess Myrcella to build a castle out of the wooden blocks he had. Meanwhile, Catelyn and Queen Cersei continued to gossip.
It had been pleasant to voice her frustrations with a woman who was Catelyn's age and class and during all their conversation she had, in all honesty, completely forgotten the letter from Lysa.
The Lannister's had killed Jon Arryn.
Lysa's written words plagued her mind in that moment and she just about wanted to bury her face in her hands for how foolish she had behaved. Spouting so many personal things to a potential enemy had been stupid, she realized, but she hadn't thought that in the moment. Her tongue had gotten away from her and Cersei had eaten it up with sly gusto.
And now to top everything off, her dear Bran had banished her from his presence. Again, she just couldn't understand it. How could she have come to mean so little to him?
As her mind was plagued with those thoughts, her eyes drifted over to her littlest. These days Rickon was constantly enraptured in the little figurines that had been gifted to him by Potter. Dolls that held the simplified likeness of the Stark household including their maester, wards, and the bastard as well. She watched him playing with the dolls and found that he had divided them up into four groups. The Bran, Rickon, Theon, Luwin, and Catelyn dolls were gathered within the blocks that were stacked up to resemble Winterfell, and as far as she knew, that’s where they had been for several days now.
Currently, he was in the middle of rotating between the side by the bed were the dolls of Arya, Sansa, Harry, and Ned were gathered, and the middle of the room was where Robb and Hermione’s dolls were slowly making their way across the room together. Wooden animals (more gifts from Harry) scattered between both the journeys and every once in a while, Rickon would break away from one set to play with the other.
At the moment, he was in the middle of the room as he took the Robb doll and the Hermione doll and mimicked a game where they were going on adventures together. Presently, they were being chased by a leather ball as it was rapidly rolling towards them, making loud proclamations to one or the other about how they triggered some sort of trap where the ball would crush them, and they needed to run faster or die beneath it. Luckily, they escaped its path just in time, though Catelyn wouldn’t have minded if the ball had gotten the Hermione doll.
After that, he left those toys alone for a bit while he rushed over to the ones on the bed. And like that, he was imitating the voices of all the people who had left for King’s Landing.
She had half a mind to wrestle the ward pieces away from her son and cast them into the fire then and there. Of course, though, he would cry and make such a fuss, perhaps for days, and she didn’t need her final son being mad at her, too.
Off on one of the windowsills was the final member of his wooden doll set. It was where the Jon Snow doll was gathered with some random figurines that had been old knight toys passed down from the other boys. Rickon had marked that area as the Wall, where Jon was headed. Like the Winterfell group, Rickon wasn't too interested in what was happening there and had forgotten about those for the most part. But Catelyn stared at the doll, fearfully remembering the insubordinate look the bastard had given her before he had left the castle, hopefully forever. It was yet another fear that weighed heavily on her, now. The bastard had always regarded her with fear, which was necessary in his upbringing. Jon was a threat to all of them, her children especially, and she could not allow that threat to grow strong. Catelyn had made sure he knew at every opportunity that he was an outsider to the castle, just as much as their wards. He had no place. He was not welcomed. And yet, despite all that, he had the audacity to actually glare at her. Right before leaving, Jon the bastard had glared so furiously at her that it left a cold foreboding feeling to settle deep in her chest. In his eyes, she saw the threat to her and her family rise in full at last. She couldn't ignore that look. Why, he would have attacked her in the yard if her husband had not returned and jumped in at the right time. The treachery of bastards could always be counted on.
Her eyes again moved to her little son who was sprawled on the bed.
Despite herself, Catelyn found the game had gotten rather amusing, especially when he engaged in mock fights between the Arya doll and the Sansa doll. It was just like those two. Their arguments never seemed to last too long as either the Ned doll or the Harry doll would usually step in to stop it from escalating. Then the quarrelling girls would go their separate ways, usually Sansa with Ned to go on tea parties with a lion toy that he said was Prince Joffrey and Arya with Harry to go on adventures in the forest. Tiny bits of strings lined their path, which Rickon explained were snakes.
Catelyn continued to watch him, remembering just then how little Rickon truly was. Too little to understand why so much of their family had left all at once. Perhaps this play was his way of understanding what was happening. Having him cope by playing out what may or may not happen to their kin and company during their respective journeys was his way of staying in control. Child or not, he needed that.
So what control did Catelyn have in all of it? Not much, she realized. Bran was in charge of the keep, not her. Ned had made himself perfectly clear in his fury after his failed return to bring their eldest back. She still refused to think back on that moment, it had been painful enough and she couldn't bear to endure it a second time. Not even in her memory.
Command or not, though, Catelyn knew she couldn't just sit here. She needed to do something. If she couldn't save Robb or convinced Bran of anything anymore, then perhaps there was something else she could do. She needed to speak with her sister face to face.
Perhaps, a trip to the Eerie was just what she needed.